Hi, one can easily turn an iPhone4 into a WiFi access point by enabling Internet sharing in Settings. Why is this feature not available on my iPad2 with OS version 4.3.3?

I read somewhere that the 3G provider needs to allow this, but empirical testing show that this isn't the full truth. A colleague of mine has an iPhone4, I think the OS version he has is 4.3, and he can enable Internet sharing on his device. I borrowed his SIM card and inserted it in my iPad2 but the Internet sharing option still doesn't show up.

Apple enabled that feature only for iPhone 4... The only way to Teher your connection is to jailbreak

Click to expand...

...which, of course isn't possible yet.

Thanks for the quick response, but does anyone know what "reasoning" Apple might have, backing this silly decision?

I find it very limiting, being forced to move my SIM card between my laptop and iPad just to access the Internet and I most definitively won't get another SIM card. The cheap plan I have doesn't include a "twin" SIM card and paying for an additional plan is out of the question.

Apple enabled that feature only for iPhone 4... The only way to Teher your connection is to jailbreak

Click to expand...

...which, of course isn't possible yet.

Thanks for the quick response, but does anyone know what "reasoning" Apple might have, backing this silly decision?

I find it very limiting, being forced to move my SIM card between my laptop and iPad just to access the Internet and I most definitively won't get another SIM card. The cheap plan I have doesn't include a "twin" SIM card and paying for an additional plan is out of the question.

Click to expand...

It's called the profit motive. You may have heard of it. Apple obviously has.

Apple enabled that feature only for iPhone 4... The only way to Teher your connection is to jailbreak

Click to expand...

...which, of course isn't possible yet.

Thanks for the quick response, but does anyone know what "reasoning" Apple might have, backing this silly decision?

I find it very limiting, being forced to move my SIM card between my laptop and iPad just to access the Internet and I most definitively won't get another SIM card. The cheap plan I have doesn't include a "twin" SIM card and paying for an additional plan is out of the question.

Click to expand...

If your laptop has WiFi then you could set that up as a WiFi hotspot and connect your iPad that way. It's very easy to set up any PC with 3G connectivity as a WiFi hotspot.

I know that I can connect to an ad-hoc WiFi network hosted by my laptop, but that implies that I have to put the SIM card in my PC and since I mostly want it in my iPad I'd have to move it around between devices. I also experienced firewall issues, those issues could possibly be worked around, but at a cost of complexity.

I don't understand what profit motive you think Apple has concerning this, though. It isn't as if Apple makes any profit from this. It is even more ridiculous that they enabled it on the iPhone4 and not the iPad2. If they kept it blocked on both devices, the strategy might possibly make some sense, but this is just oppressing the customers. I guess Apple is being Apple.

I suppose that I'll just have to wait for a jailbreak or Apple to come to their senses.

It feels good to be out of jail. I installed PDAnet using Cydia and it appears as if the network sharing works fine. The toggle for SBSettings didn't work for me, though. Seems as if the PDAnet process crashed and wouldn't go away until reboot. But I suppose that I can live without that toggle.

My son put Cydia on my iPad to turn it into a wifi hotspot and it ended up preventing my iPad from using 3G any more (best it would do is Edge). Even after removing all the "unapproved" software, it didn't fix it. It took me a month and a lot of effort to figure it out and ended up restoring to factory settings and reloading everything manually. I don't recommend it so if you want to try, beware.

I'm done with jail breaking. But I also fail to understand Apple's reasoning behind allowing tethering with iPhone but not iPad. Profit motive doesn't explain. Does anyone really think that alone would force someone to buy an iPhone in addition to an iPad? If you use profit motive, it would be a reason to allow tethering. Good for the carriers and iPad. One MORE reason to buy an iPad, one more plus it might have over pad competitors.

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